Charlie Burness, Tesco Dundee Riverside: G33 store of the week

Congratulations! 97 is Tesco’s highest-ever score in the Grocer 33 - so what is the secret of your success? We’ve been working hard on improving the shopping trip over the last year. It’s been about making sure the focus is not just on the front-end customer at the checkout, but on the whole experience. Winning The Grocer’s award is definitely a very good way to celebrate the store’s 25th anniversary.

To what extent did Tesco’s new UK management spark the changes? We had been working on some things anyway, but no doubt a big factor has been the extra resources given to us by the new management team to put extra feet on the floor in the store. It’s made a big impact and we have shown it was not just a temporary thing for Christmas.

Our mystery shopper was very complimentary about the helpfulness of staff. Have you had training in-store specifically to make staff friendlier to customers? We’ve given all our staff extra training on service and it was about making sure it was not just about the checkout but the whole store. I think it’s made a big difference.

How did the 49p Easter veg promotion go? The Easter Five has gone really well. We’ve had very high levels of sales and more importantly we’ve retained high levels of availability. It was based on the success of the Festive Five and I would say this has been just as successful.

You have a lot of local competition, including three discounters a mile or so away. How do you compete with them? I honestly don’t worry too much about what the discounters are doing. We can only concentrate on making sure we get our own shopping trip experience right.

How motivated are your shoppers by price? Price is still right up there definitely as a priority for shoppers but there’s much more to it than that. It’s about getting the formula right so you have price, service and availability all spot on.